Teenager had cuts on face and wrists, court hears

A garda has told a Central Criminal Court jury that a teenager who admits killing beautician Rachel Kiely (aged 22) at a park in Co Cork had a rugged cut across his face and scratches on his wrists, two days after her body was found.

The 22-year-old accused has denied murdering and raping Ms Kiely at the Regional Park in Ballincollig on October 26, 2000, when he was 16 years old, but pleaded guilty to her manslaughter at the start of the trial on Tuesday.

Garda Liam Woods told Mr Patrick J McCarthy SC, prosecuting, that he was making house-to-house inquiries following the discovery of Ms Kiely’s strangled body near an old ruin at the park near her home.

He said he called to the house of the accused on October 28 where he took down a statement from him about his movements between 2pm and 10pm on the day of the killing.

In the statement, read to the court by Mr McCarthy, the accused claimed he had left work at 4.45pm and gone home to have something to eat.

At 5.25pm he said he went to the Regional Park where he met a woman called Niamh Cotter who had two medium sized dogs with her.

He walked along with her before they parted and he said he later went into the old canal where he had left his motorbike, out of view against a tree.

He said he travelled along the gravel on the route Niamh had originally taken at the ruin, before going towards the bridge and onto the rugby field where he stayed for around an hour.

He said he had fallen from the bike a few times and grazed the inside of his right ankle.

Whilst he was at the rugby pitch the accused told Garda Woods that he did not see or meet anyone, but when he went back through the park, through the ruins he said he had met an old man, aged between 50 and 60, with a black “high-type” hat, grey hair and a knee-length jacket.

The accused said he had a terrier dog with him.

Garda Woods said the accused told him he knew the deceased, but had only seen her with her sister Rosalyn.

The last time he had seen her alive, he said, was two to three weeks beforehand.

During the answering of this questionnaire Garda Woods said the accused seemed “very cool and calm".

He said he noticed he had a ¼ inch rugged cut on the right hand side of his face as well as “very small scratches or tears in the skin like something from a bush or briars” on the back of both of his wrists.

Earlier in the trial Javin Andrews, a friend of the Kiely family and a member of the Jehovahs Witness congregation to which they belonged gave evidence of having searched for Rachel that evening, after she failed to return home with the family dogs.

He said Rosalyn Kiely began calling her sister’s name after her cap was found at the entrance to the ruin.

At the side of the pathway he noticed broken ferns and walked down where he touched something with his foot.

He realised it was Ms Kiely’s body.

“The actual body had ferns layered over it. That’s what obscured the body,” he told Mr McCarthy.

He bent down to move some of the ferns away and saw a small part of her back showing. He touched her body with his hand and it was warm.

“Rosalyn was screaming at this time,” he said.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Barry White.